Another Love
by evieeden
Summary: Bruce didn't want to hurt Natasha, but the shadow of Betty was always on his mind. A-Z Songfic for 1st December.


**I caved. This is an advent/A-Z/song-fic story for the 1** **st** **December. Not sure where this came from, but I'm running with it for now.**

 **Anyway, I own nothing to do with Marvel, and I very much hope you enjoy reading this as I've never written Bruce before.**

 **Another Love**

He wanted to do right by her. He wanted to try again so much.

It wasn't what he expected; she wasn't what he expected.

He had resigned himself to a life of solitude after what had happened in Harlem. After all, how could he expect another person to follow him, to live the broken, messy life he had created for himself? He hadn't expected Betty to follow him, to run with him, and he really hadn't been able to see himself ever opening up to another woman again in the same way.

And then Tasha had crept in, crept under his skin and dragged him kicking and screaming into the world again.

Oh, he hadn't expected anything from her when she had first arrived in India. She was beautiful, but then they'd sent beautiful before and it took a lot more than that to sway him.

 _I'll persuade you…_

He'd smirked when she said that. He had no doubt that her version of persuasion would be either incredibly pleasurable or incredibly painful.

Natasha Romanov may have looked beautiful and fragile when she approached him, but one look into her eyes showed him a core of steel beneath. She was a tiger wrapped up in a butterfly's guise. Still…maybe part of that was just the Other Guy talking. Everyone looked delicate and fragile to him.

That opinion of her didn't change much over the course of the events on the helicarrier. She was still beautiful, of course she was, still strong, but there was a wariness in her eyes, the same he had seen on her face after her had slammed his hands down on the table in that hut in Calcutta. Still, there was strength there. Strength and knowledge, and that knowledge was her power.

Natasha had been prepared to _persuade_ him, but she hadn't forgotten who he was or what he could do.

Oddly, what made him take notice seriously was that the natural fear of him she held was gone by the time he got back to New York again after his fall. Still wary, still cautious, but no fear – it was similar to the way she treated Thor and the Captain. They were all still unknown entities, unfamiliar, but she was no longer worried. She trusted them to have her back.

Trusted _him_ to have her back.

The Other Guy was pleased to have such a strong ally.

Bruce still struggled to look her in the eye.

But he noticed her; it was hard not to. He _saw_ her.

He saw how hard she tried, to atone for the sins of her past, to make things right again. What was the phrase Loki had used again? Oh yes, the 'red in her ledger'. She wanted to wipe it out and working with the Avengers was her way of doing that.

And so they grew closer – first in proximity, and then in mind, and then…

His alter ego liked her. He liked the sound of her voice and he liked the way she never panicked around him. She was the calm in what was quite often the storm of bullets or gunfire or strange alien tech.

The man liked her too.

She teased and cajoled him, calling him out when he got too bogged down in one of Tony's mad schemes and dragging him out of the Tower so he could experience life once more. She listened to his stories and rambling theories and trusted him with some of her own.

She brought him some small measure of peace. He didn't know what he brought her.

A part of him wanted to give her everything, to lavish her with smiles and tokens of his affection and hugs, like the ones that Thor seemed to dish out so readily to everyone. He wanted to make her laugh, make her eyes gleam in satisfaction and humour and make her feel that she didn't need to try so hard for him. He already liked her; there was no need any more for the mask she habitually wore.

But every time she moved a bit closer, he hesitated.

Because there had been someone else once upon a time; someone else he had adored and trusted and wanted to give the world to.

 _Betty._

He had been forced to leave her behind and the look on her face…

He had never felt so low before.

The Other Guy didn't just make him a target and rob him of his sanity and any chance of a stable home he once had, he also hurt those Bruce loved. Not deliberately, but the damage was all the same. His presence ruined lives, caused deaths and shattered families.

He had given his all to Betty and in the process, estranged her from her father, nearly caused her to be run down by the military and had his own near miss between her and the Other Guy.

Betty was living proof that this wouldn't work, that relationships…love…in the future wouldn't work for him.

He didn't know why he thought that working with the Avengers would erase that fact.

Betty had deserved better. It was why he left, irregardless of his feelings, and it was why he would stay away from her. He had given everything to her, taken everything of her back, and at the end of the day, they had both been left with nothing.

Natasha deserved better too. Better than him anyway.

So he used the events in Sokovia as an excuse. He pretended that by bringing out the Other Guy she had betrayed him somehow. He fought Ultron, made sure she survived and was safe on the helicarrier, and then he ran.

He ran like that the coward he was, because if he couldn't give her everything then it wasn't worth risking giving her nothing.

He just wished he could get her look of despair when he switched off the quinjet's screen out of his head.

He still wanted to give her everything, but he didn't want to risk her. It had happened before and he wasn't going to let it happen again.

God, he was a fucking coward.


End file.
